posted December 27, 2005 23:57
K, geeks I need your help. I will try to explain this problem as well as I can with my limited computer knowledge.

It's real simple. My computer is saying I have low disk space and need to free up space by disk cleanup or deleting programs. So, the first time this pops up I go in and delete some files we no longer use and use disk cleanup. Then my computer is running fine, and lo and behold a day later after not downloading anything just internet browsing it says I have low disk space. So, I again delete more programs and files. And again after just hours this time I have NO disk space. Because of this issue I have no media player because my comp is saying it cant hold it. Basically, all I can use my computer for is internet browsing and even that doesn't work too well. Some sites wont load very well or even load at all. Can somebody help?!?!?
Posts: 4 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged

posted December 28, 2005 00:41
Have you tried going into your browsing options in IE (assuming you're using Internet Explorer) and clearing your cache, deleting all cookies, etc.? Sometimes the cache gets jammed up with all sorts of junk and that screws up your response time.

--------------------Change the way you SEE, not the way you LOOK!Posts: 3849 | From: Lancaster, PA | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged

posted December 28, 2005 00:49
If you are talking about going into tools, then Internet Options, then deleting all the cookies, and temporary internet files. Then yes I HAVE to do this every so often, this enables some web pages to actually load but after about awhile of browsing it starts slowing down and no loading so again I have to go in and delete cookies, and temporary internet files. It's almost like the only space my computer will hold is just like an hour of internet browsing, then have delete it and can go another hour, if that makes any sense at all. . .
Posts: 4 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged

1.) You've got one huge program that's hording a LOT of space, so you're always up against the wall.

2.) Cache and history are filling the computer because they are set to retain too much, and you're addicted to the net...

3.) There is malware on the machine filling the harddrive with junk data.

Suggestions:

Clear all malware (run an AV, SpyBot, and adaware at the very least), clear all browser history/chache/cookies, and remove larger programs. Defragment the hard drive (if it's a Win/DOS machine). Buy new hard drive.

posted December 28, 2005 02:15
I see this occasionally on my windoze box.Clearing cache, emptying recycle bin, etc as described above followed by a reboot often makes the problem go away. I've never bothered tracking it down properly, but my vague suspicion is that some app I'm running has a resource leak that causes disk space to get 'eaten away' steadily, the reboot starts again with a clean slate. The 'free space' figure can often increase by several hundred megabytes after the reboot.

--------------------If you watch 'The History Of NASA' backwards, it's about a space agency that has no manned spaceflight capability, then does low-orbit flights, then lands on the Moon.Posts: 10631 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Oct 2002
| IP: Logged

i just found out that my ibook has a 9GB swap file sitting in it...yeah...

How is that even possible? I thought the architectural limit to all memory-physical and virtual- was 2 gigabytes for a 32-bit system.

--------------------"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower." - Robert M. PirsigPosts: 948 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged

posted December 28, 2005 19:33
nerdwithnofriends wrote:How is that even possible? I thought the architectural limit to all memory-physical and virtual- was 2 gigabytes for a 32-bit system.

Assuming it was a Windows system, Fat32 supports 4 gigabyte file sizes. NTFS supports 16 terrabyte file sizes. There is absolutely nothing in Windows to prevent the swap file from being larger than the actual amount of memory that the OS can actually utilize.

--------------------There are three things you can be sure of in life: Death, taxes, and reading about fake illnesses online...Posts: 9305 | From: Westchester County, New York | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged

posted December 29, 2005 04:58
But OS X is 64 bit (well partially anyway) and can address 8GB of RAM so a 9GB swap wouldn't seem too unbelievable (although I would be rather surprised to see one unless you were rendering Toy Story 3 or something...

--------------------"So if you want my address - it's No. 1 at the end of the bar, where I sit with the broken angels, clutching at straws and nursing my scars..."Posts: 1934 | From: Suffolk England | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by Serenak: But OS X is 64 bit (well partially anyway) and can address 8GB of RAM so a 9GB swap wouldn't seem too unbelievable (although I would be rather surprised to see one unless you were rendering Toy Story 3 or something...

But It's an architectural limit. The OS may be compiled to run on a 64 bit machine if it wants to, but in the end it comes down to the processor. It IS 4 gigabytes for a 32-bit machine (2^32 = 4 gigabytes). On a 64-bit platform, it's something like 16 exabytes (whatever 4 gigs squared is).

There can only be as much memory as a pointer will effectivey point to. And since pointers are only as wide as the architecture on which they exist, the memory limit is effectively that of a pointer.

Right?

--------------------"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower." - Robert M. PirsigPosts: 948 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged

posted January 01, 2006 14:25
nerdwithnofriends wrote:There can only be as much memory as a pointer will effectivey point to. And since pointers are only as wide as the architecture on which they exist, the memory limit is effectively that of a pointer.

posted January 01, 2006 14:30
M$ recommends your swap file be three times as large as the amount of physical memory you have. A vendor for a piece of software we use strongly suggested we adhere to this, and I told him he was crazy. There was no way I was creating a 4.5 GB swap file!!! If a system needs this, there is some seriously bad sh*t going on.

(Oh, and on average, I've found this system rarely uses more than 350 MB of RAM...total!)

--------------------There are three things you can be sure of in life: Death, taxes, and reading about fake illnesses online...Posts: 9305 | From: Westchester County, New York | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged

posted January 02, 2006 14:00
Unless it's the 64 bit version of Windows, it won't actually use more than 4GB of physical/virtual memory, so your maximum swap file shouldn't be more than 4GB - physical memory.

Incidentally, as far as I know, Microsoft does not make that recommendation and it's arse backwards if you think about it. On a system with lots of memory, you would naturally need less space for virtual memory than on a system with limited memory. Using N * memory to determine maximum swap file size will result in exactly the opposite of what you need.

quote:Originally posted by Steen: nerdwithnofriends wrote:There can only be as much memory as a pointer will effectivey point to. And since pointers are only as wide as the architecture on which they exist, the memory limit is effectively that of a pointer.

It is little bit more complicated than that these days...Virtual Memory means basically that Linear Address Space is not the same as Virtual Address Space. It is quite possible, to have multiple 32-bit address spaces and that is what modern OSes do.

Virtual memory means that you virtualize the address space so that there is no longer a one to one relationship between physical address space and the process's address space. It is true that this allows you to put some addresses in a swap file, but it also means that you can use indirection to exceed what most people think of as the 32-bit memory limit.

On Windows you can use Physical Address Extension (PAE) and Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) to exceed the Physical Address limits and per Process Address space limits respectively. This is made even more complicated on Windows, because the address for a process is divided into two parts with 2GB for the kernel (or 1GB with the \3GB boot.ini switch enabled) and the rest for the process itself.

Despite being mainly a Mac I guy I have never really need to deal with this on OS X and I am not sure if there are equivalent functions, but I would assume there are.